socks

I was never really that big of a sock knitter until I realized, "Hey! If I say I'm going to knit socks, that allows me to buy more yarn!" So, I bought lots of sock yarn and kept telling myself I'd knit some socks because, well, I had lots of sock yarn. Last year I tried my first socks, I don't really remember what the pattern was, but this was before I learned magic loop and was trying to struggle with dpns. I got fed up with that, ripped the socks out, and put them away for about six months. I finally learned how to do magic loop just so it would be easier to try socks and I tried again. This time I tried a toe-up pattern using some Cherry Tree Hill. The yarn was great and everything was going smoothly until I got to the heel. I tried to knit that stupid heel about 20 times, couldn't get it, ripped the sock out and put it away again for another six months (have you figured out yet how I deal with problems?).

Then I tried again and it fiiiiiinally clicked and I had my first finished socks. I dunno where it is. It doesn't have a partner, it's boring stockinette and it's too short. But it's a sock! From there I made a pair of Jaywalkers, Knitty's Monkeys, and so far, one Pomatomus.

(Blogger is not working right now so I'm having trouble uploading photos. More when the internet starts working again.

"A PUPPY IS A LOT OF RESPONSIBILITY"

Aaaaaaaaaah Dan and I got a puppy. I haven't been knitting much because puppies pee a lot and pretty much don't sit still. At all. EVER. Still very cute, nonetheless.

Now my blog will be flooded with puppy pics. And maybe some knitting. Yessss

ugh

Well, I finished the back of the Raspy sweater. I dunno why but it seemed to take twice as long as the front, although it's much smaller (we'll get into that later). I think when I first start a project I jump in with vigor and optimism and uh, hope but then after about, oh I don't know, 12 hours of knitting the dream just sorta fades. And you're left with the blunt, unattractive realization that the back of the sweater you've been working so feverishly on and dreaming about and whatnot, is a full FOUR INCHES SHORTER than the front. HOW THE HELL DOES THIS HAPPEN?? I used the exact the same needles, the exact same yarn, hell I even knit during the same shows so there shouldn't have been any differences in stress level. Like, you know how sometimes when you're watching shows like ER or Lost and it get's really tense and you're knitting gets tighter and tighter and tighter? Well that wasn't it. I don't know what happened. I've spent so much time knitting this stupid sweater on size 6 needles (which is TINY for me, ok?!) and I don't really know what to do. I guess I'll go ahead and finish the sleeves then see how it all works together. Maybe a good bit of stretching will work. If not, I'll frog and knit it again in the round because that way you can't get two different sizes! Oof.

On a happier note, I'm working on the Hourglass Pullover from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, which is coming along very nicely because it's in the round. Ha. That's the only way I can make sweaters. I'm using the malabrigo I got a few weeks ago and it's sooooo nice. It may just be my first favorite yarn. Until now I've never really looooved any yarn I've worked with but this stuff may just change my mind. We'll see how it holds up to wear (I've heard it's pilly).

And this is just an example of how crafty my family is. This is a, uh, thing that my sister made my mom in I dunno, clay class or something. She gave it to her for mother's day. Aww, very cute, right?













Then my dad got hold of if and, erm, decided it needed to be more "life like." Yeah, they're kidney beans. Creative, huh?

RIBBIT

I started knitting around October '04 and the first thing I ever made was a garter stitch scarf in something gray from A.C. Moore. It turned out well and from then on I was hooked. Next I did another garter stitch scarf in something fluffy from Red Heart. That turned out equally nice. After that I got the Stitch 'N' Bitch book and was amazed at all the different yarns and guages and textures and colors there were. I immediately wanted to do make the felted marsupial bag. It looked easy enough, didn't require purl stitches, and it was just SO cute. So I went to my lys and found some scratchy Lopi yarn in a light blue and a hot pink. I whipped that bag out in 2 days. And what's the next logical step after making 2 scarves and a bag using only knit stitch? That's right, a sweater. And was I going to mess around with some cheap acrylic from Michael's and cheap plastic needles? Hell no! I wanted Rowan! And bamboo needles! (If you haven't noticed, I tend to jump into things head first without thinking too much). So I began working on the Big Sack Sweater in Rowanspun Chunky. During that sweater I learned the long-tail cast on, how to purl, decrease, how to make lumpy bind-offs and how to messily seam. I think I was so excited to actually be finishing a sweater that I didn't really care about how the seams looked, just that they actually held it all together.
I'm actually wearing the sweater right now and, oof, every time I look at the seams it makes my heart skip a beat. The seams are crooked, fat, and uneven and the proportions of the sweater are SO wrong, but I won't frog any part of it because it shows how much I've grown as a knitter in the past year or so. And I love it.

Anyways, after I finished that sweater I couldn't be stopped. I bought all kinds of yarn (and not the cheap kind either) and patterns and started a crazy number of projects. All I wanted to do was start something new each week, while forgetting about the things I had started the weeks before. Eventually I had about 6 projects going at once, had been knitting like crazy, and had nothing to show for it. Then I just got tired of working on those and started some things that I really wanted to make. So those poor 6 projects sat in my closet for close to a year. Well last night I'd had enough of it. So I frogged them ALL. And now my yarn stash is huuuuuuge. And I feel sort of guilty for having bought all this yarn because I worry about whether I'll ever be able to use it or not. Right when I started knitting I think I was so desperate for a hobby that I just jumped full force into it without thinking much and now I have a ton of yarn that I bought then but never really used. Oh well, I better get to knitting!

on cotton yarn and arthritis

Well I'm still truckin' with raspy. This project has made me less of a fan of cotton yarn because it hurts to knit with. I've never had my fingers cramp up while knitting but they actually start to after about 15 minutes with this stuff. Oi. I feel like the guage this sweater uses is a bit too loose for this yarn and so I have to knit really really tightly to keep from having random loose stitches. But it's coming along. I finished the front last week and it's insanely long...27 inches! It comes to almost mid thigh on me so i'm really hoping that this 20% shrinkage rule is accurate. If not i may just have to give it to my sister as a dress. Ha. I'm about halfway through the back and now I'm starting to worry that I'll run out of yarn. I bought 11 balls of the den-M-knit from elann.com which is the amount needed for the smallest size, but my guage is a bit smaller than the pattern so it might be pushing it. Luckily this yarn is made specially for elann so i think they should always have some on hand.

Anyways, here's a pic of the front pinned to my shirt just for fun. I dunno, I was bored and wanted to see how long it was going to be. And I guess this confirms that, yes, it's long.

Hmm what else...ah yes. I was suckered into buying more yarn. I saw this pattern and just had to buy the yarn for it (which I found on sale on another site muahaha).


And then I bought this malabrigo because, well, because I JUST HAD TO DO IT! The color is "little lovely" and it's goooooooorgeous. I'm thinking of making the hourglass sweater out of it if I ever get the pattern.

superbowl, house, grey's anatomy, lost

what do all those tv shows have in common?

i worked on these projects during all of them (which is a good 6 hours of knitting) and all i have is this:














sorta pathetic, i know. i'm having a hard time with this cotton yarn. it's SO unforgiving when it comes to uneven tension and i am definitely the queen of wonky stitches. i'm hoping that when i wash and dry the sweater all that unevenness will magically disappear and i'll be left with a gorgeous, machine-made looking piece of perfection. ha.

btw, i'm using color silk garden #224 for the wrap. the colors in my pics are a bit off and look more "bleh" than they do in real life. hopefully i can get a picture thats fairly accurate soon.

on having the best bf ever!

so dan and i decided we weren't going to do much for valentine's day this year because we just had our 3 yr anniversary, christmas, and his birthday so we were pretty much all gifted out. instead we had a dinner of wine, cheese, and sushi at home. i thought it was very cute and had fun. he did get me one little present though...about 10 rows...of a scarf...THAT HE KNIT HIMSELF! i was majorly impressed. i've been bugging him for forever to let me teach him to knit cuz all i've ever wanted to do in life is sit on the couch watching house and knitting with him. aww. well he finally broke down and learned. he even stole a pair of my needles and my S 'n' B book. told ya he was crafty. ;)

oh! and i finally got my christmas present! again! dan got me a pair of cowboy boots for christmas but they were late so i got them around new years. they didn't fit. so we returned them and got a different size (and style). 3 weeks later we got those. they fit but had some stitching missing from the top. returned those. a month later we got the new pairt. FINALLY. now i'm worried they're too big. oi. maybe i'm just not used to big shoes, but when i wear them i feel like i've huge clown feet (which isn't a good thing, although it is funny).

and yes those flowers are in a sports/water bottle. one of these days i'll buy a vase.

Arizona

so carrie (my sister) is big into gymnastics and her team had a meet in arizona last weekend. usually i don't go to her meets because a) i work and b) they're boring (jk, carrie). but since this meet was in AZ and i've never been, i thought it would be nice to go. i also have a cousin and uncle who live there which i haven't seen in a while. anyways, i left raleigh friday evening and go to phoenix around 2 AM our time. oof. carrie didn't know i was coming so i tried to come up with this great plot to surprise her that entailed sneaking around and whispering and knocking on doors and all that great stuff. well when we got to the hotel she was, of course, already asleep. so that plan didn't work out so well. why am i telling you about this? i'm not sure so i'll stop.

anyways, phoenix was really nice. the city itself is very, very flat without any trees (aside from palms) which is SO strange. i mean, duh, it's the desert and trees don't do well there, but it's just so different when there's no greenery around. that and people had front lawns made of gravel. my cousin yelled at me when i walked through her "yard" because now she was going to have to rake the gravel. bahaha. yes, that's a picture of her front yard.


we also drove up to sedona which is further north. it's closer to the grand canyon so the landscape there had lots of those beautiful red rock formations. i didn't get any good pics so i stole this one from the internet (which is legal if i say it's stolen, right?).

i also got a loooot of knitting done on the planes and layovers during the trip. i started working on raspy and since i'm anti gauge swatch, i didn't do one. i just doubled the number of stitches it says to cast on and began knitting in the round (plain stockinette). i got a good 6 inches during the trip. last night, for kicks, i slipped it on some longer needles so i could put it around my waist and see how big it was. tonight i will be ripping it all out and starting over. enough said.

worst blogger EVER

OK, so i realize that i haven't updated this in um..3 months. and i feel bad. but i don't feel that bad because, well, no one reads this thing. i think if i had the pressure of millions of people reading this every day (like some of the better blogs out there) i'd feel more compelled to update it more than once every season. but i will try to update it more often and maybe if i do that i'll have more than one regular reader (me).

so, on to the knitting. i've been working furiously trying to finish my simple v-neck short sleeved sweater and it's finally done! when it first started it was supposed to be like the knit and tonic essential stripe sweater , but somewhere along the way it became the short sleeved, non striped sweater because, honestly, once i'd done approximately 3 miles of stockinette stitch in the round (zzzzzzzz) i just didn't feel like doing 2 more miles for the sleeves. so they stayed short, which i think is just as cute. i've also realized that i LOVE knitting from the top down. it's amazing, you can try on as you go, you never have to purl, and once you're done, you're done (there's no seaming!) it's great. so yeah, this sweater turned out nice and it's my first one that is more fitted and isn't huge (the other sweaters i made were the big sack sweater from snb and the lace leaf pullover, both of which are mega oversized).

yep, so that's finished.

what next? well i'll tell you--an entrelac wrap. i saw a finished version of the lady eleanor stole and said "WHOA! i have to have that!" unfortunately the pattern is from the book scarf style and, well, i don't have that book. i've looked through it a few times and thought about buying but i'm just not that big into scarves. but entrelac is entrelac and once you know how it works you can pretty much change the details to make anything you like. so i used the pattern for danica from knitty but just made it wider. yeah, i'm crafty. so that's coming along nicely and it's a really neat technique that i've been meaning to try out.

as you've probably noticed this is a long post, but when you don't update your blog for three months you have a lot of stuff to update.

i also have three projects that i've got yarn for that i'm super excited to start.

they are:

• raspy from denim people (rowan)
• aimee from vintage knitting (rowan)
• demi from vintage knitting (rowan)
• salina from vintage knitting (rowan)

yeah, i've got a thing for rowan, which is sorta bad because their yarn isn't the cheapest. ah well, hobbies aren't supposed to be cheap.